The House Guest

Alyssa was dumped out of the blue by her powerful husband, Bill. In love one day, out the door the next! She meets Bree while drinking in a bar one night and feels a connection to her. Bree is having issues all her own, being tormented by a man she had a past relationship with. One drink leads to another, and Alyssa invites Bree to stay at her guest house. The two become friends and are constantly together which is nice for Alyssa as Bill appears to be muscling Alyssa out of everything- money, home, country club, etc.

Enter the FBI stage left. What is going on???

For a portion of the book, I thought Alyssa was making one bad judgement call after another. Inviting someone to live in her guest home, then helping her follow up on a DNA/ancestry database which led her in a roundabout way to Dez, who was trying to track Bree down. I thought how convoluted can this be? Now Dez is a constant in their lives and hanging out. Who lets virtual strangers in their home(s) and in their lives quite so fast? A lonely woman is who. Plus, that woman doesn’t seem all that angry at Bill for ending things drastically. Why-are-you-not-angry????

Then as I got closer to the end, the book kicked into high gear for me, and I began enjoying it. There are quite a few twists and there was a bit of entertainment. Was this my favorite book by Ryan? No. But I did enjoy the twists and the pure entertainment of it. It was a no-nonsense cat and mouse thriller which was quite entertaining. I enjoyed shaking my head at some of the discussions and choices made. This was pure escapism reading for me. This had me wondering if the author was a Desperate Housewives fan. It had that kind of vibe to it.

I used to watch Hank Phillippi Ryan on the news when I lived in MA. I even saw speak at my local library there and have enjoyed her books. She is a very intelligent woman, and I would love to see her write a book with an intelligent and powerful female protagonist.

Thank you to Forge Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.